Sleeping Lions
by keyblader41996
Summary: Drabbles about the sleeping patterns of each of the Paladins.
1. Hunk

**_Hunk_**

When he sleeps in a bed, Hunk sprawls out as far as he possibly can. His feet and toes always have to be covered - he can't fall asleep otherwise. But his legs are spread out to the bed posts and his arms jut out of the blanket from every angle.

Any time they camp outside the castle, the team argues over who sleeps next to Hunk. He burns _hot_ , a potable furnace of natural body heat, perfect for cold-climate planets and for hugs when anyone's feeling sad. Hunk jokes and says it's because his heart is so big and warm. And from all his layers of 'insulation'.

The only downside the team seems to silently agree on: he snores like a bear.

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I'm hoping to bust a writer's block, and I love headcanons about these kinds of things. Leave a review if you have time, and even send me your own headcanons if you want! :)


	2. Pidge

_**Pidge**_

Pidge can't fall asleep unless her glasses, her comm device, and her picture of Matt are within reach.

It wasn't that she needed the glasses. They were an old pair of Matt's and were just a part of her disguise, after all. But those glasses and that picture were the only things she had left of him, and she didn't want to lose them. Couldn't bear to lose them. If she could, she'd tuck the picture right inside of her arms while she curled up in the warm, cozy little ball she likes to sleep in, but she'd never risk bending it.

Instead, she keeps it up above her pillow. And sometimes she wakes up with her arm extended, like she's reaching for Matt in her sleep.

And sometimes she wakes up with a pillow or a bunched up bit of blanket snuggled tight between her arms, imagining it's him in her sleep and trying to cling to him.

Clinging desperately to all she's lost, encircling it, hoping to protect it with her own body and reclaim it by the time this is all over.


	3. Shiro

**_Shiro_**

Terrible nightmares plague Shiro, night after night almost without fail. He's been told he mutters fitfully - things ranging from gasps of shock to strangled cries of exertion to orders for Voltron. He clenches and unclenches his right arm, he tosses and turns, he fights his blankets like they're the straps of a Galra operating table.

Sometimes he remembers his dreams. Most of the time he doesn't.

Either way, he likes leaving the lights (and, when camping off-ship, the plasma burners) on low so that if he wakes up, scared and shivering in a cold sweat, he can immediately take stock of where he is and if he's with people he trusts. It makes calming himself down a much shorter process. If Keith is still awake, which he usually is, he'll sit with Shiro, talk him down, offer phrases of affirmation until the tears stop and the panic abates.

That was if he even _slept_.

For Shiro, falling asleep was a feat of painstaking routine and tremendous patience. Enter his room. Sweep the perimeter for any trackers or bugs. Mark the exit, the distance to all the other Paladins' rooms, and how quickly he could sprint to each of them and alert them individually if the master alarm was not tripped. Take stock of the manual alarm each of them had in their room like the lever alarms on Earth. Do another sweep of the room for bugs, just to be sure. Check his wardrobe for his armor and make sure it was there, ready if he needed it. Even after all that, after he assured himself over and over that he was safe for the night and it was okay to let his guard down, he had trouble.

When he finally settled, Shiro couldn't fall asleep anyway unless he was facing the door.

Facing the door, as close to the edge of the bed as he could comfortably lie, so that he could get up at a moment's notice.

And he always kept his right hand above the covers. Always. Waiting. Prepared. Ready.

Shiro was always a relatively light sleeper, but ever since he escaped it was miserable. Every single sound startled him. Every creak of the castle or odd hum of technology. His eyes shot open, his heart instantly started racing, and his fists were up, ready to combat anyone coming to take him out to the arena again. Constantly combatting the uneasy feeling that tickled his neck and prickled between his shoulder blades that wouldn't abate unless facing the door.

More often than not, he tired himself out mentally. Just enough to curl up on whatever side he was lying on to see the door and snooze for however long until the next sound woke him up. But no matter how much sleep he got, he was always the first one up in the morning, ready to take on the day with his team.

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 **This chapter is definitely the longest. Shiro is such a complex character due to the many facets of his PTSD. Underneath the commanding confidence and wisdom of experience there is a broken man just trying to move on. His condition enhances his character SO WELL, and I believe that not exploring it as much as possible in this circumstance would be a disservice to him. Why does Shiro do what he does, etc.**

 **Leave a review if you have time, and please send me more headcanons!**

 **~Keyblader**


	4. Keith

**_Keith_**

It takes Keith a long, long time to calm down after battles if he's not already exhausted.

Even hours after the Lions have been stored in their hangars and the lights in the castle have been turned off, the adrenaline still courses through Keith's veins. His senses never dull - the calm picture of his dark room looks _too_ crisp to be real. It makes him itch. Makes him twitch, raw energy crawling under his skin like bugs. Blood pounds in his ears, and so do the echoes of the shooting and the ringing of his bayard and the cries of dying Galra soldiers and bots. His hands shake, his breathing never quite returns to normal.

He _has_ to burn off all the extra energy before he can even think about resting. He has to fight until he's so exhausted, he has nowhere to go _but_ to sleep. Until the shaking moves from his hands to his knees and there's black creeping at the edges of his vision instead of the dust particles in the air. Sometimes he spends hours fighting the training bots, and sometimes it's only minutes before he can close his eyes.

But when he does, everything fades away. And he's calm and he's rested and he's relaxed until the next battle.

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I'd like to thank The Best Guest for the headcanon! :)

~Keyblader


	5. Lance

**_Lance_**

Lance has three night time playlists. The first two: _Sounds of Space_ , and _Sounds of Earth_.

 _Sounds of Space_ is just the natural electromagnetic emissions of the planets in the Milky Way, and a bunch of new planets they visited that Hunk recorded. It isn't . . . _music_ , per se. Some are mixed to soft EDM beats or are superimposed over atmospheric noises to make them sound more cinematic, but . . . in their natural beauty they are white noises and ambient musics without melodies. Just floating sounds that allow him to picture himself weightless in space, soaring past the solar system. He can dream of stopping at Earth and appreciating the view of his home. Swirling clouds, swirling oceans, green and brown and blue and white colors. If he is far enough away in his dreams, Earth looks small enough that he could cup it in his hands.

Sounds _of Earth_ is carefully organized by terrain. _Rainforests._ _Woodlands._ _Bayous._ _Mountains._ _Deserts._ _Bustling Cities._ _Night and Day._ _Winter, Spring, Summer_ , and _Fall_ each have their own playlist as well. He has animals, he has nature, he has weather, too.

 _The Rain_ is one of his favorite weather playlists, for obvious reasons. It includes everything - sounds of sprinkling, sounds of hailing, sounds of storming complete with thunder and torrential rain. Rain that comes down in sheets and rain that comes down in bursts and rain with winds that blow it in from the sides. Set against various backgrounds and settings of his other playlists.

And then he has his third playlist. _Veradero Beach_. The constant rolling of the waves and the smaller, trickling splashes of the shallows make a continuous cadence behind the other sounds. Tropical birds call all around him, filling both sides of his head phones, and even traveling from back to front, growing louder and softer to make him feel like he's completely surrounded. Gentle island breezes rustle palm leaves that he imagines stretch overhead. Guitar music with beautiful melodies and chords that roll and swirl together and gently wrap him in its transcendence. Passion and longing incarnate.

He loves his _Veradero_ playlist the most. It is for nights like this. Nights like this when he can't sleep because his heart is too heavy and sick. When he misses the sands of the beach and he misses the clear blue water between his toes. When he misses his _abuela_ 's cooking and his mother's hugs and the patter of his brothers and sisters' feet on the floor. The constant babble of people and his father playing guitar and . . .

Sounds of _home_.

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 _ **Aaaaand . . . finished! Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed and favorited and followed, especially**_ **The Best Guesst _for their headcanons. This went in a completely different direction than I was expecting it to but I still really really like what I wrote. Lance's music is definitely important to him and I imagine it's important to his sleep, too!_**

 _ **Happy Easter, if that's your thing! Happy Passover if that's your thing! Happy everything no matter your thing!**_

 _ **~Keyblader**_


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